Setting Up DNS, Custom Domains, Senders, and Replies

This article covers everything involved in sending CRM emails from your own organization's domain: verifying DNS, adding senders, and setting Reply-to addresses correctly.


Looking for the full CRM walkthrough? See the Comprehensive CRM Guide.

📬 Two ways to send

You can send CRM emails one of two ways:

  • Roundtable's shared domain — no setup required. Emails send from @crm.civicroundtable.com and are ready as soon as your CRM is configured.
  • Your own verified domain — requires DNS setup, but sends from your organization's real email address for better deliverability and a recognizable sender.

Only a verified custom domain unlocks custom senders and custom Reply-to addresses.

✅ Verifying your domain

To send from your own domain, you need to add DNS records proving you own it.

  1. Go to Settings → Email Senders → Add new domain. The domain field is pre-filled based on your login email — for example, if you're logged in as emma@civicroundtable.com, your domain is civicroundtable.com.
  2. Click Get DNS records and copy them exactly as shown.
  3. Share the records with your IT team or DNS administrator to add to your DNS provider.
  4. Wait 15 minutes to 24 hours for DNS propagation, then return to Email Senders and click Check verification.

Troubleshooting: if verification fails, allow up to 24 hours and confirm the records were entered exactly as given. Contact support@civicroundtable.com if it's still not verifying after 24 hours.

Subdomains vs. root domains


Verifying a subdomain (e.g. messages.yourorg.org) only verifies that subdomain — it does not verify the root domain (yourorg.org), and vice versa. If your IT team can only verify a subdomain, keep that in mind when choosing sender and Reply-to addresses (see below).

➕ Adding senders

Once a domain is verified, you can add specific "from" addresses on that domain as senders:

  1. Go to Settings → Email Senders.
  2. Under your verified domain, add a sender with a From email and From name — for example, info@messages.yourorg.org, "Your Org Communications."

✨RT Tip: Any address on a verified domain can be added as a sender. ✨

⏪ Setting a Reply-to address

Reply-to addresses are restricted to protect your organization's data — you can't set replies to route to an arbitrary inbox. A Reply-to must match an email address that already exists as a verified sender or a CRM user. This exists to prevent replies from being accidentally (or maliciously) routed to an address outside your org — for example, someone shouldn't be able to set a random third party's email as the Reply-to on your org's outgoing mail.


If the address you want as your Reply-to isn't yet a sender or CRM user: add it as a CRM user first (Settings → Users, or via the People tab), then it becomes selectable as a Reply-to.


A Common issue: root domain Reply-to on a verified subdomain

If your domain setup only verified a subdomain (e.g. messages.yourorg.org) but you want replies to go to an address on the root domain (e.g. info@yourorg.org), that root-domain address won't be selectable as a Reply-to by default, since only the subdomain is verified.

Workaround: add the root-domain address (e.g. info@yourorg.org) as a CRM user. Once it exists as a CRM user, it becomes available to select as a Reply-to, even though its domain isn't separately verified.

⚠️ Worked example

Your organization's IT team can verify messages.yourorg.org but not yourorg.org itself (this is common; companies often restrict what subdomains can be provisioned). You want:

Steps:

  1. Verify messages.yourorg.org under Settings → Email Senders.
  2. Add info@messages.yourorg.org as a sender on that verified domain.
  3. Add info@yourorg.org as a CRM user (not as a sender — it's on an unverified root domain, so it can't be added there).
  4. When composing or configuring your email, set the Reply-to to info@yourorg.org. Because it now exists as a CRM user, it's selectable even though its domain wasn't separately verified.

Still stuck? Contact support@civicroundtable.com.

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